The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED DAILY SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1928. CAN LABOUR BE TRUSTED?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10734, 3 November 1928, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED DAILY SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1928. CAN LABOUR BE TRUSTED?

I t is to .be regretted that Air Coleman,' the : Labor aspirant fqr, the Gisborne seat, persists in his., politically dishonest, attempt to ■ mislead the electors in connection with Labor’s new election policy. /At his meeting Jn the City Hall , on 'Wednesday night, he had the audacity to ask ; his hearers to believe- that Labor' ha-d not changed its tactics. Stireiy he ’\tas : banking vfqr too heavily on thei fact that not infrequently, many ’electors provo to have but short memories'? - As 'Mr. Coleman wiis-'at the time referring to Labor s hew land policy, wd .won’t require .to go to' much trouble to show that, even in regard toi that plank or the Labor platform, Very drastio <£qutiv.ard” alterations have been made since 1925 in ,tho hope of gulling the sinail. farmers.' Mrl Oplenian cannot, of - bourse, dispute TtHe it'ns cominpn'. .thffib yearg ago, his party stepd for the

principle that privately owned land should not bo sold or transferred except to the State. Under that principle, the State could be the only possible buyer of any land and an owner would be prevented from transferring any, land even by gift or by bequest to his wife or his children! Mr Celeman,..now says Labor stands on the same platform as it has always stood. But how does he account for the fact that the 1928 Labor land policy provides for “the full recognition of owners’, interest in all land, including tenure, the rigid; of sale, /transfer and bequest” ? The position is, of course, jfcbat Labor has not made any “inward” change in respect of its general policy, Wliat it -is simply indulging in is a clumsy effort at double dealing —ji daring piece of trickery, such as has never before been attempted in the political history of this Dominion! Nobody should know the true facts better than Mr Coleman in his capacity of a member of Labor’s national executive. That the 1928 land policy is to be thoroughly mistrusted is shown by the fact that Labor has never disavowed one of its main objectives—the . nationalisation of the land. Mr Coleman was, it should be pointed out, a member of the Labor committee that was charged with the duty of re-casting the land platform, for the. pending election and that committee, in presenting its recommendations, stressed its belief—a very strange belief .if genuine—that the new proposals wero “in line with the objective of the party, viz., that public ownership of the land is the only remedy for the present chaos' and muddle.” As a signatory to that report, Mr. Coleman personally stands condemned, to a share of the shame "attaching to the effort that is now being made by his party to deceive the electors in such a bare-faced manner.